The global statistics are staggering: 2.4 billion people do not have access to a toilet or latrine. About a billion of them have to defecate in the open, which often leads to serious public health problems. And more than half of the schools in the developing world lack private toilets.

How would you feel if you weren't able to have a sanitary place to go to the bathroom? If you didn't have access to clean, safe, drinking water? For people who do have access to these things it can be hard to understand how lucky we are.

Menstruation is universal, it is a part of a woman's identity and is something all women have to go through every single month. What the advertising neglects us to see is the thousands of women out there who have to work under very harsh conditions while having their periods.

Za'atari is a refugee camp -- 80,000 people live here now -- but it is in the process of becoming a city. New people are not arriving, another camp is taking those people now. And it is hard to know how many more people Jordan can take -- this country of a little more than six million people is also home to nearly three million refugees.

As with many of the SDGs, Goal 6 has significant implications within the borders of Canada. The requirement to ensure universal and equal access to drinking water and sanitation resonates most loudly for indigenous communities. As of July 2015, Health Canada reported 133 drinking water advisories in 93 First Nations communities.

It won't surprise you to hear that women are among the world's most vulnerable populations. But it might surprise you to learn that one of the most difficult parts about being a woman is also one of the most natural: menstruation. A girl's transition into womanhood is often marked by the beginning of her menstrual cycle, an occasion that is celebrated in many cultures as an important rite of passage. But in many parts of East Africa, it marks the beginning of a lifetime of discomfort, embarrassing health problems, and even harassment. It marks the beginning of schoolyard bullying, missed days of school, and the start of a lifetime viewed as a sexual object.

The world has reached the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of cutting by half the number of people without access to safe drinking water, five years ahead of the 2015 deadline. While that is good news, millions of people, for instance, still live without a toilet. Not a very sexy topic -- but one which is of great concern if the world is to meet goals on reducing under-five mortality.